Paint and Stains
by Kuro49
Summary: Peter/Neal. No one is ever just a clean blank slate. Neal paints and it's not so much innocence as it is Peter being Peter.


Okay, so I think I was experimenting with something but I am pretty sure I forgot not even half way through. :S But well, here is another Peter/Neal fic with a splash of paint play that really isn't as kinky (at all really) as it sounds. I am also sorry for that too.

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**Paint and Stains (and marks you make that don't go away)**

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Neal lays the paint heavy against the white, the red against the blue and mixes with a dry brush right on the canvas until he sees the purple-violet, too blue along the left edge and too red along the right, bleed through.

He doesn't step back, just gets closer in, grip tight against the length of his paintbrush. And it always starts with painting a Caffrey original that blurs into a forgery of any one of the great masters.

There's good and then there's the best. He is neither and both all at once.

Neal adds another layer against the still wet oils, starting from the outside and working his way in. It's a violent colour red that stands among the sea. It's a cold edge of blue that cuts into blood. And he doesn't turn around when he hears Peter enter his loft.

He only looks beyond his canvas for the glass terrace doors for a fraction of a reflection of a man in a bad suit. He doesn't tilt his head back to catch his gaze, knows his eyes are already on him from the weight and heat of a stare he has learned through time.

"Checking up on me, Peter?"

And it is soft when he speaks, cool in the way he doesn't put down the paintbrush, warm in a way that he doesn't feel a shred of embarrassment at his own state of undress and the worn jeans unbuttoned at the fly and scuffed at the seams. He's in an artist's state of mind, there's nothing he isn't comfortable in.

His skin, it finally feels right on the flesh and there is nothing that can touch that won't slide right off.

"Just came by the area for something else, thought I should come up to see what you are doing."

"It's eleven, Peter." He reminds him, dark eyes hooded as he stands up straight. Neal doesn't turn around, not just yet. Instead he methodically cleans his brushes until the water turns a dark murky purple he doesn't drain. "It's late, Peter. I think you should go home."

"You want me to go?" Peter asks, and it isn't supposed to be that straightforward between them. Neal almost misses the deceit and lies, he only bites his tongue back because he wants to know just as much, if not more.

He turns from looking at Peter's reflection in the glass to staring at Peter in the flesh.

And he knows, he has never been able to get far.

Neal gives the other a small twist of a smile and says.

"You know what I mean."

Neal watches as Peter runs a hand through his hand and grumbles.

"Do I really?"

And Neal supposes he should have seen this coming the very same second Peter's eyes betray the both of them with that glimmer of _what a bad idea this is_, the same glint that Neal knows he is holding in his own blown blues.

Peter pushes him back against the canvas, and Neal's own painting imprints against the skin of his back as he opens his mouth into Peter's kiss.

It isn't in the details or the way Peter can't help but step into Neal's space, it is how Neal doesn't push up to bite back, to take what Peter is rightfully offering. Neal doesn't bite.

(Rather, his mouth opens, pliant against his in the faintest hint of a smile that stains.)

"Peter, have you even thought this through?"

Neal tilts his head as he pulls back, bares the soft side of his throat like a counteroffer and doesn't ask about Elizabeth like he ought to. Instead, he taps the side of his anklet to Peter's foot, reminds him of an ownership that can't really disappear no matter how hard either of them rub and scrub at the scars to go away.

There has always been just a little too much to their pasts, a little more than just scars on the surface of their bodies. Because they don't actively harm when they can make you dream of them in your sleep.

And it intertwines until Neal isn't quite capable of getting away clean. Peter too, at the way he is willing to fall to his knees to see another smile in those blues. Only this time, Neal doesn't smile, doesn't try to lure him into a false state of mind that promises the world.

"I'll still be here when you make your decision."

What he doesn't say is that he won't run away. And for Neal, that is too much of a promise to make without it being intentional. He watches as Peter, understandably, looks away.

"You didn't coerce me into this." Because even when there is no one to convince, Neal Caffrey has to make a convincing argument out of everything. "I didn't say no."

The reformed con puts a hand to Peter's cheek, tilts the man's chin up to look at him, and there against his face he makes his mark. A violet handprint that stains the skin, something that washes off in the sink but doesn't ever really go away.

"You didn't say yes either, Neal."

Peter drags a hand across the small of Neal's bare back, paint wet against his fingertips and smiles into the curve of Neal's shoulder when he tugs him close.

XXX Kuro

I would really love some feedback on this piece because uh, I am not sure at all what I was going for here.


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